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Parameshwar Maharaj
Submerging into Myself
Advaita in Practice
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12. Practice in everyday life
Q: What is the importance of meditation and what is the importance of practice in daily life? Are they both essential for the realization of the Self and even for its extinction? Can they be considered as two pillars or functions equally necessary to advance in the Way of Being? Or just by working out in one of them can Realization be achieved?
P: They are useless if the attitude is not correct in everyday life. I interpret that you make a distinction between "sitting" and remaining conscious of what to do during daily tasks. The inner work demands, as all the ways do, the disidentification with things; In fact, everyday life is a continuous identification, everything demands our attention, when we are not giving extreme importance to personal problems. This attitude, the current, we take to the "sitting" creating a barrier almost impossible to tear down, and this is because maintaining attention demands a dose of energy that has been wasted on a daily basis with continuous identification. Continuous thoughts, images, dreams, etc. The only way to counteract this is to bring to daily life the state of meditation, that is, to be "centered," and for this there are many techniques already created, such as paying attention to what you do, always maintaining the overall attention of the body, etc.
When you throw yourself into realization, which is nothing more than clearing the unknowns that your mind creates to see the evidence that you already are, you have to know what is not real in you; Diving in yourself has its consequences and the first of these is to run into the impossibility of silencing the mind. If during the day it is not quiet, it will not be when you sit down to meditate. Another impediment, and very important indeed, is the conceptual building you have built to avoid seeing how ignorant you are. This castle made with clichés, knowledge of here or there that stimulate you, touch you emotionally or awaken your intellectual interest, it presents itself to you when you try to look for yourself.
There are many, many people who practice meditation for years and are barely able to be thirty seconds in a row without thoughts. Meditation can become a habit more than the many we already have, in which case it is useless. How are you going to purify your mind, if you do not do it in everyday life? It resembles the one who goes to mass on Sundays and nothing else out of it remains the same stone heart of every day.
To realize that you are already and keep yourself aware of that so natural you need to make an effort. It is not enough to know that you already are, but also you must be in every moment, everything has its rules of the game. Being requires an over-effort, in addition to what we need to do the things that are habitual and performed in a mechanical way and often with a minimum of attention. It is an over-effort of attention directed towards oneself while one is acting.
Q: Parameshwar, there is a theme that creates discussion among practitioners of the Way of Being: Enlightenment.
Some say that the goal of every practitioner is to reach enlightenment. However, others say that Enlightenment should not be something desirable, but that it is the Work itself that is desirable and transformative and that Enlightenment is not something that is in our hands or our will, but will or will not happen, but not depends on one and therefore should not be set as a goal to achieve.
I would like to know if Enlightenment is the same as the Extinction of Being. And, according to your experience, what is your opinion about what has been said. Gracias.
P: Lo que los demás piensen sobre ello no es trascendente, se suele hablar de eso de la misma manera que se habla de política o de deportes.
La Iluminación es un tópico más de los que abundan en este terreno llamado "espiritual".
¿Qué es para ti la Iluminación?
I: No lo sé, estoy bastante confundido.
P: La Iluminación no es más que una toma de consciencia por la cual se elimina definitivamente la ignorancia; el motivo que lo causa es lo de menos. Es preferible que sea por experiencia directa, que arroja una verdadera y correcta comprensión, que por la vía intuitiva, la cual no permite, en casos muy elevados, la experiencia de lo real.
Con la iluminación la mente ya no busca. Esta que navega en la oscuridad, buscando siempre conocimiento y buscando soluciones de acuerdo al conocimiento que almacena, cuando conoce que ella es la Consciencia ya no buscará la Consciencia más, esta es obvia, está ahí. La Iluminación convierte en simple y evidente lo que antes no se conocía, pero... ¿quién es el conocedor o no conocedor? La mente y solo la mente. Por lo tanto, ella, que se mueve entre el par de opuestos conocimiento-ignorancia, es la que se ilumina.
Iluminación y Liberación son la misma cosa. La extinción de la ignorancia conlleva en sí misma la irrealidad del YO, de las tendencias latentes y, sobre todo, la confusa idea de que uno es el cuerpo físico. Pero para aseverar este hecho solo tiene autoridad aquel que ha disipado las nubes que Le ocultaban a Sí mismo. Debido a la misma naturaleza de la ignorancia, muchos, adoptando para sí las palabras del sabio, no dudan de que no deben realizar esfuerzo alguno, simplemente porque comprenden intelectualmente. "¡Ah, los vasanas son irreales, y el yo! ¿Para qué hacer cualquier tipo de esfuerzo para ser lo que ya soy?" Para esta clase de mentalidad no existe liberación. Pese a que comprenden, siguen en poder de la ignorancia. Con esta lógica no alcanzan a ver que los grandes sabios han realizado todo un camino, a veces muy ascético, para poder decir por derecho propio que en mí la ignorancia es solo un velo de ilusión. A estas personas, incapaces de buscar en sí mismas, el gran Ramana las catalogaba como "no-aptas" para la realización. No me cansaré de alertar sobre esta trampa mental en la que muchos caen, pues todo tipo de conocimiento desaparece cuando uno desaparece hundiéndose en la Consciencia Pura. Pasemos a la práctica.